So Long Love
by IzabellaRiddle
Summary: Atlantis was so full of mystery little did they know what they would find in the deepths of the city and the effect it would have on the expedition team when something went wrong. Written by Z.


A/N: This is my first McShep story...I want to thank Jamie for his help betaing and for his encouragement to keep going. This story is a deathfic and is kind of morbid.

They buried him on the main land. It was a bright sunny day, which belied the turmoil it threw the expedition members into.

It had been three days since he had died. In the East Pier Rodney McKay had met his end. He and Radek hadn't come up with a way to save him before it was too late. They didn't have enough time to stop the nanites that invaded his brain.

Elizabeth preformed the Eulogy through her tears as all of the expedition members bowed their heads in utter disbelief. John had been unable to speak because of his tears. The head stone was made by Dr. Radek Zalenka out of wood found on the mainland. On it he etched Rodney's date of birth and at John's request his date of death. Along the bottom resided the words.

"Brilliant scientist, Brave man, Beloved friend."

John sat there for hours after with the rest of his team watching from a distance, thinking about how he would never hear one more snarky comment from the scientist who had been his best friend and teammate from the beginning. He would never he would never see that crocked smile that rivaled his own or see the pride in those beautiful blue eyes when he saved the days at the last minute.

John sat beside the newly disturbed ground the last words of the man he loved sounded in his head. A small scared voice over the comm speaking three words John would never forget.

Flashback

"Carson, it's starting," Rodney said before he started screaming. It started just as it had with Hayes, Dumais, and the first two scientists that had died from the nanites. For the last hour he had seen many ghosts in his mind almost like Wraith projections.

John was in Rodney's lab where he had spent many days annoying Rodney just to get him to laugh through their well-meaning banter. Many times in the last six months he had been summoned there by the astrophysicist to use his ATA gene to turn some Ancient artifact on with his mind. John had always complained outwardly but Rodney knew that under the complaining John loved doing it. He was sitting at Rodney's computer station pounding the counter with his fists as hard as he could, his own tears drowning out Rodney's screams of pain and utter horror. Then, abruptly as it had begun, the screaming stopped but in his mind it continued as Atlantis screamed as she lost one of her children.

John felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and turned looking up to find Rodney standing there right behind him. The hand which had been warm upon the first touch began to get cold and John shivered. Rodney was wearing his normal blue Atlantean uniform; almost identical to the one every scientist wore except his, which had a patch on the side. It identified him as the head of the science team. The blue in his jacket making the blue of his eyes stand out even more against the stark white walls of the lab. John loved the color of Rodney's eyes always saying how it reminded him of the sea that surrounded the city in which they had come together.

_"So long, John,"_

Rodney said tears running down his cheeks though he made no attempt to brush them away instead he locked eyes with John and held his gaze. All the feelings shown in his eyes until he disappeared in a shuddering gasp. John spent hours crying sitting on Rodney's lab stool with his head resting on the cold outer shell of Rodney's laptop. The last thing he heard before the numbness slipped over him was Carson informing Elizabeth and the city over the comm that Dr. Rodney McKay was dead.

End Flashback

Everyone watched John as the days passed and all John could manage was routine, only speaking when needed, other than that he spoke to no one. The whole city knowing why his silence was so strong didn't speak of it out load. Everyone was scared for their friend and military commander. Fulfilling his orders and duty with unwavering precision as he always had was easy for John but he no longer took any pleasure in anything. When Rodney had still been alive John would walk through the halls of Atlantis with a bounce in his step. The sides of his mouth in an almost permanent smile. The only thing that seemed to pleasure John was sitting in Rodney's lap staring at a picture of him.

When the Genii tried to take the city in the middle of a hurricane that was going to hit the city John was strong. Everyone was evacuated from the city except for a small team that stayed behind to put Dr. Radek Zalenka's plan into action. John managed to kill so many of Kolya's men that Kolya called for reinforcements. When they were coming through John put up the shield stopping them from coming through and killing the fifty or so men in the process. The plan was successful and the city survived another tragedy.

One day they found three hive ships on a course to Atlantis after the long-range sensors were accidentally activated. They had no way to protect the city since the ZPM wasn't powerful enough to power the chair and that was their only weapon but they decided to make a stand after reinforcements with weapons came through the gate from Earth. Atlantis made a stand and destroyed one hive ship before it reached the planet by way of an Ancient weapons satellite. They got the Genii to let them have two atomic bombs and they were loaded into a jumper that Zalenka set to control by use of the chair. The only problem was that the chair didn't work because the generator wouldn't power up right.

It was almost six months to the hour when John decided at the end of all things to take the jumper with the Genii bombs from the Jumper bay. He flew it toward the hive ships. Under the cloak John landed and planted the bombs. He got off the hive ship and it disintegrated leaving two hive ships still standing. The other two Wraith hive ships fired at the small jumper and it single passenger. A ship appeared, the Dedalus, firing on the hives, which were in orbit around the planet made of mostly water. The ship had been sent from Earth and would be Atlantis's salvation since it carried with it a newly found ZPM and supplies that were needed. The battle began and the jumper was forgotten in the mayhem.

For three hours the battle raged between the city protected by the Dedalus and the hive ships, which sent many Wraith into the city by way of Kamikaze darts. Many military officers and civilians the same were fed upon by the Wraith as they went through the city. Only when the very last ship had been destroyed did the Wraith in the city become defeated. It was then that they finally think about the small jumper that had disappeared during its pilots suicide run.

They found the jumper crashed into the semi-hard ground of the mainland a long trail of scorched Earth showing the impact it made. Aiden Ford and Teyla Emmagan the two young members of Atlantis's flagship team SGA-1 searched for the missing leader of their team. They followed a bloody path from the jumper and what they found took their breath away. They found Lt. Colonel John Sheppard their commander and friend sprawled across the grave of Dr. Rodney McKay. John was dead, likely from sever injuries caused by the crash which John had made no attempt to soften though he could have. Aiden Ford turned to Teyla when he heard her give a startled cry looking down he saw what caused the stoic Athosian to cry out. He rapped his arms around her holding her close to him as she cried and there in the dark brown dirt of Rodney's grave were three words.

_"So long, Rodney"._

The lovers had died with the same words on their lips. They buried him on the mainland next to Rodney. It seemed that everyone was there the whole of the Atlantis expedition was transported to the mainland, as they had been for Rodney's funeral, and they were joined by the Athosians many of which John had saved during his time in Atlantis. Radek made the headstone out of the same wood he used for Rodney's. A beautiful color of wood dark brown with its own luster to it, matching in color perfectly to the color of John's hair. Only the closest friends of the dead lovers knew that they had been buried wearing matching wedding rings. Only Aiden and Teyla had known at the time of their deaths that they had been married by an Athosian priest two weeks before Rodney died. They had told a few people afterward but only those that had been considered by John and Rodney to be their closest friends. On the stone was etched John's name, his date of birth, his date of death and the words..

"Brilliant soldier, Brave man, Beloved friend"

Silently Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Aiden Ford, Carson Beckett, Radek Zalenka, and Peter Grodin prayed that where ever they were that John and Rodney were together again.

Upon returning back to the city Elizabeth once again watched as they placed in the steps of the gate room a stone plaque. Peter had suggested the plaques as a way to remember those of the expedition that died while in Pegasus. The first plaque had been set into the steps by John himself in reminder of Colonel Sumner who had been killed in their first encounter with the Wraith, the second plaque had been set into the steps by Rodney in memory of Robert Gall who had killed himself after being fed upon by a Wraith. Now Teyla and Aiden the last remaining members of SGA-1 placed one long plaque into the steps. Set in stone forever the memory of the beloved sons of Atlantis...

Lt. Colonel John Patrick Sheppard and Dr. Rodney Nathaniel McKay-Sheppard

Loving Husbands


End file.
